Rebecca Turner Woody

I’m a sixth and final year PhD candidate in the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University. My primary research interests lie in stellar evolution and Galactic archaeology, with a particular focus on deriving robust stellar ages and using them to study the formation history of our Galaxy. The core of my thesis is using non-solar benchmark stars to quantify and calibrate the systematics in stellar ages that arise from the imperfect treatment of convection in low mass stars. My ongoing work includes a program to use these benchmark stars to create a robust absolute age scale for the MIST isochrone library, incorporating the uncertainties in other input physics beyond convection.